This August Albanian Government made a first step to open public tender for international promotion of Albanian Citizenship by Investment Program.
The Special Citizenship Programs Drafting Agency was established in 2020 for the express purpose of preparing a citizenship by investment program for Albania. Now its Director, Bledar Skenderi, announced the government’s intentions to find private companies that can promote the CIP internationally. That step marked the beginning of the establishment of the program.
“After this decision, the Ministry of the Interior will form a working group that will draft the program. Then an international competition will be opened, where the winning company will be chosen based on the expertise and experience it offers in this field”, explained Skenderi. He also He that the actual issuance of citizenship and the required security checks would remain under state jurisdiction.
Albania hopes one day join the European Union. Has status of candidate since year 2014. Most recently, in a 2021 progress report on the country, the EU criticized Albania’s nationality law amendments, which allowed for expedited naturalization of investors in the country through special programs of economic interest. Such statements, however, has not deterred the Albanian government, which, according to Balkan Insight, insists the CIP will be free of corruption and maintains that the EU’s views on CBI are prejudiced.
Europe’s most recent program for foreign investors was launched in January 2019 in Montenegro, and it will run until the end of 2022. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has been in favor of such an initiative since 2019 after attending a conference for “golden passports” in London. He considers the citizenship-by-investment program as having “enormous potential” for the country.
Nuri Katz, founder and CEO of Apex Capital Partners: “There are many rumors surrounding the creation of Albanian Citizenship by Investment Program and these rumors have been around the industry for years now. One of them is are that the program is being developed with the help of the same people who developed the Moldova program that opened and closed in about six months. And left a lot of client with having paid fees and never receiving anything. It might also become like the north Macedonia program which has apparently issues less than ten citizenships and is clearly not working.Whenever government programs are developed secretly without any transparency the programs come under very serious pressure from other countries. I expect that if Albania is able to defend itself against the EU and it creates a program in secret( without the advice and input of the industry as a whole) then the program won’t be popular and won’t last long. Those of us who have been in this industry for long have seen all of this many times before.”
How to apply for Montenegrin citizenship in 2022?
From January 1, 2022, the amount of the mandatory contribution to the state development funds will be 200,000 euros, and not €100,000, as was previously the case. The choice remains unchanged: to invest in an authorized resort project in the north for €250,000 or in the south for €450,000. The government is estimating that the total value of all projects is around €450 million and could lead to more than 2,200 jobs.
Government fees also remained unchanged. Please request more information from APEX about calculation (atannous@apexcap.org).
The conditions regarding the medical check have been changed. Now the application will not require a medical report from the country of permanent residence.
